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    Trials and Tribulation

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    June 25, 2021 will mark the 71st Anniversary of the war between North Korea and a coalition of United Nations forces. Over seventy years has now passed, yet why hundreds of POWs weren’t returned still remains a mystery for the American people. What follows tells about the difficulty of getting to the bottom why we know so little. During the Korean War 92,134 GIs were wounded, 4,759 went MIA, 36,516 died on the battlefield, 3,000 died in captivity, 43% dying of starvation, and at least 450 POWs were left behind, alive. From 1996 to 2005, American and North Korean military search teams led 33 re..

    The 47th State Panacea or Perversion

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    C.S. Lewis warned about our final mastery over nature, and the inevitable drift into a future world where knowledge about the old world completely vanishes, where what once was, irretrievably transforms into something else:     … We do not look at trees either as Dryads or as beautiful objects while we cut them into beams: The first man who did so may have felt the price keenly, and the bleeding trees in Virgil and Spenser may be far-off echoes of that primeval sense of impiety …. The great minds know very well that the object, so treated, is an artificial abstraction, that something..

    JULY MEMORIES–from CHILDHOOD TO OLD AGE

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      WAR HEROES, PHOTO BY JOE CARVALKO, DEADLY FOG, 2004       On June 29, 2020, Jonathan Marcus,  diplomatic correspondent for BBC News, reported that “Russia is also waging a ‘grey’ or undeclared war against the West. This has many elements: cyber-attacks; disinformation campaigns; electoral interference; the funding of extremists in Western countries . . . Russia under President Vladimir Putin has smarted from every perceived indignity suffered since the fall of the Soviet Union.”     On the heals of Marcus's reporting, it then came as no surprise when I saw Washi..

    LAWYERS BEAR RESPONSIBILITY for WHAT’S WRONG with AMERICAN JUSTICE

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    Statue of Justicia (Justice), by Walter Seymour Allward,  Supreme Court of Canada.   Cromwell: Suppose I were to take a dagger from my sleeve and make to kill the prisoner with it; and my lordships there, instead of crying out for me to stop, maintained their silence. … It would betoken a willingness that I should do it, and under the law, they will be guilty with me. So silence can, according to the circumstances, speak! ~A Man for All Seasons   On the heels of recent protests, I received an email from a law school colleague lamenting that he is “wrestling with sadness, anger, and p..

    CAN HUMANITY SURVIVE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

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    The ideas, the analysis, the predictions, everything fills the pages of Carvalko's mind and his latest book, “Conserving Humanity at the Dawn of Posthuman Technology,” is a provocative case study in this conflict between man and machine— and their inevitable melding. And their inevitable misgivings.   QUINNIPIAC MAGAZ I N E 9 B Y B R I A N KO O N Z P H O T O AU T UM N D R I S C O L L CAN HUMANITY SURVIVE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY? Imagine a time when the human brain is connected to a computer network, downloading data quite literally in the blink of an eye. The potential gain for knowledge i..

    THE PROCESSION OF JUSTICE

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      SINCE ANCIENT TIMES men have memorialized through writings engraved in the edifices of government, memorialized in the thoughts passed from ruler to ruler, memorialized in the institutions that subjugate the poor, the minorities, the legacies of war and the charters of ruling establishments, the clearest of all messages: power survives. It’s not goodness, not compassion, simply power— the power to do something, to effectuate change, or in most cases to maintain the status quo ante.   Why is it that millions are protesting across America? One answer: citizens are incensed by the mur..

    MEMORIAL DAY

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        Each year on the last Monday of May this nation pauses to pay tribute to the men and women, who in military service to our country, died.  We pray for our heroic dead, who, in the words of the civil war general John A. Logan made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes.   In anticipation of this special day each year I challenge myself to remember my first parade. WWII had just ended, May 8, 1945, my father had yet returned from fighting in Europe. I stood next to my mother watching men in uniform 4, 8 and 16 across, three times as tall as I, marching down..

    CHAPTERS FROM A COLD WAR-ONE AMONG MANY

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        June 25, 2020 marks the 70th Anniversary of the war between North Korea and a coalition of United Nations forces. Two years ago headlines read: Remains of 200 missing US soldiers from the Korean War were flown by military transport from North Korea to South Korea. That same month, President Trump addressed a rally in Duluth, Minnesota, announcing, “We got back our great fallen heroes, the remains sent back today, already 200 got sent back.” It seemed that the administration was spinning the idea of a détente with North Korea, as part of its Singapore Summit campaign with the dictator, Kim..

    Remember the Heroes

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    As I write today sheltered in place, out there somewhere nurses, doctors, and medical attendants are working around the clock at their peril ministering to those caught up in a contagion that’s spreading around the world.     I’m reminded of someone, who in 1952 quit her job, operating a 25,000 pound punch-press at the one of the grease filled factories that framed my hometown, for one that exposed her to another sort of peril—nursing.     It was a time when medicine had yet to halt deadly diseases like polio or tuberculosis. In our town those with contagious disease, menin..

    The Ides of March

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      It’s March 15 and the Ides of March are upon us. It marks the Roman deadline for settling debts of all stripes, one which in 44 BCE became notorious, when Julius Caesar was assassinated, thus turning the world in another direction. On this day, I’m wondering if the world is at another turning point. If so how can I tell? And if it’s a turning point, in what direction should I be looking?     For decades I’ve been fascinated with why people come to believe in things. I’ve written about it, taught courses, and sweated out many decisions before more than one jury or judge over a..

    My Trip thru the Art World

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    THE PRINTS MOUNTED IN THE GALLERY     I solved the mystery of where four photos I’d taken in 1969 traveled over the last 50 years. The photos were of white blood cells. What made them special were that the cells were dosed with a radioactive tracer, which under a scanning microscope, with monochromatic light, were among the first to be seen as contourograph displays, giving them a 3-D quality. All right, so much for what they were. Following the experiment, a colleague and I published an article in a scientific journal with the black and white photos. The pictures were then copied (w..

    FINISHING SCHOOL-learning the order of things

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    The peasant, or mechanic, imbibed the useful prejudice that he was advanced to the more dignified profession of arms, in which his rank and reputation would depend on his own valor; and that, although the prowess of a private soldier must often escape the notice of fame, his own behaviour might sometimes confer glory or disgrace on the company, the legion, or even the army, to whose honours he was associated. On his first entrance into the service, an oath was administered to him with every circumstance of solemnity. He promised never to desert his standard, to submit his own will to the comma..

    A FAIRY TALE- Gulliver Updated

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    At first, the Lilliputians are hospitable to Trump. They are a people who revel in displays of authority and performances of power. Republican senators seem especially so impressed, but are also wary of the threat that his size poses to them. The Lilliputians reveal themselves to be a people who put great emphasis on trivial matters. For example, which end of an egg a person cracks becomes the basis of a deep political rift within that nation, some states turn from red to blue.   But as much as they trifle on the inane, Lilliputians easily ignore that Russia, the nations mortal enemy, act..

    John F. Kennedy-62 years ago

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    Fifty-six years ago, this weekend, we repeatedly crossed and traveled over a Dallas route with a presidential motorcade that showed President John F. Kennedy’s head unnaturally convulse forward and then jerk backward as slugs from a “lone gunman’s” rifle recoiled to change our lives and the course of world politics with less than a few grains of gun powder. Kennedy died at the Parkman Hospital in Dallas, November 22, 1963. The episode seared itself into our bones. Commissions would convene to investigate, research, marshal facts, debate, hypothesize and never satisfy many of us as to what happ..

    SEVERING OF THE SPECIES

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    Severing of the Species Implications of Genetic Editing and Artificial Intelligence on the human substrate[1]   Joseph R. Carvalko, Jr. Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale University New Haven, Connecticut, USA [email protected]         Abstract—This paper reports on the confluence of current data gathering such as genomic-wide association studies,  related to the heritability and manipulation of traits, and bioengineered processors, which combined have the potential to influence the further development of our species. Specifically addressed are: genetic..

    PARADOX OF HOPE

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        The bounty of affluence trickles to wet the lips of the have-nots while we applaud ourselves for our generous contemplation, tightly held in clenched white knuckled fists that protect the tokens of our prosperity, that grant fortune to the fortunate upper, that let drip the fluid remains to the tolerated middle, that deposits the soft dung for the bottomed masses who persevere on a desolate patch on a parched plain in the center of an Eden despoiled by the gluttonous interests of despots, politicians, and the high priests of industry whose blindness protects them from their ugly satisfacti..

    WINDOWLESS

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    IMPEACHMENTS bring back memories that I'd long shelved for good reason. Oh, not the reason you may think, i.e., living vicariously through the excising of an affront to our collective sense of how public officials should behave. Although, there is a vicarious part, because, during the Nixon hearing  the summer of 1974, I was taking my first constitutional law class and obsessed with the hearings--, to the degree that I set my cassette tape recorder in front of the radio each morning, making sure I didn't miss a verbal moment. As fate would have it, eight years later, I became friends and partn..

    When America Did Something, Not Because It Was Easy But Because It Was Hard

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        I saw the dark side of the Moon in the company of a few, who like me, were to bear witness to something for the first time in human history.   On August 10, 1966, a daylight meteor was seen in the sky from Utah to Canada. It’s said to be the only known case of a meteor entering the Earth’s atmosphere and leaving it again. It was also on that day, at 2:26 p.m., Eastern time, from Cape Kennedy,  Lunar Orbiter 1, the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon, was launched. Four days later, at 8:43 a.m., Eastern time, the spaceship successfully entered an orbit around the Moon, becoming the..

    MI CASITA

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    I need but listen to this to imagine what it would be like if I were denied mi casita in NM. I can't help but think about the families that will be whisked away today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxHSQHfdFbM#action=share   Where do I come from, my friend? Qué de donde amiga vengo?, from a little house that I have below the wheat field de una casita que tengo más abajo del trigal from a small house for a pretty woman who wants to accompany me de una casita chiquita para una mujer bonita que me quiera acompañar has a few vines in front tiene al frente unas parras where the cicadas sing..

    PIECE OF ME- Not an Obit, but a Reflection.

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    My Dad was born of immigrants, 1921, in Attleboro, Massachusetts. As a kid he lived in New York, during the depression, working on a bakery truck before school. He married at 18, had me,  and at 23 went to war. He saw life, probably not to different from the way young men in his time and place saw it, as something hard. After the war, he returned to Bridgeport, and worked in the same factory for over forty years, lived in the same house until he died, sixty years later. We are cast by genes and shaped in childhood, together channeling how we survive and become “someone” at the same time. Until..

    PEACE

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    Happy Easter to my Christian friends, happy Pesach to my Jewish friends.  Since Trump is a non-sectarian blight upon the country, I’d like to say a few words that men and women of all faiths might think about. Let me tell you a little about why I feel empowered to say what I am about to. First, I’ve practiced law 40 years, and know something about it. I know what the law is on Obstruction of Justice. I know what the law is on crimes of Attempt, Solicitation and Conspiracy—I spent years defending clients accused of crimes, years traveling to all corners of the world, dodging people who would br..

    100TH YEAR REMEMBRANCE OF WWI-3 poems

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      Few of us can say they knew someone who fought in WWI. Tuesday, May 8, 1945, VE Day, when war ended in Europe for the second time in a quarter century, my mother rushed me out of the apartment to join a mass of people, who cheered as soldiers from WWI paraded down Main Street. My grand-uncle George, who fought in WWI and suffered the long effects of being gassed, had recently died. A couple years later our neighbor Mr. White, a WWI vet, France in 1917, gave me his gas mask, jacket and helmet. I still have his jacket; it’s over 100 years old.     NONESMANNESLOND You ask when’d..

    SELF-ABSORPTION

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    Looking back on my early experience as a young engineer, I am reminded how little my colleagues and I appreciated that what we did would change the world, for good and for bad. I am also reminded how Marcel Golay, one of my early mentors understood the duality of technology and how this feature plays large in its application for the right purpose.     Born in Switzerland 1902, Golay received his engineering degree from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, the same college from which Einstein graduated. He is best known for the invention of the Golay cell used in gas chromat..

    TRUMP AND THE REALITY OF CLIMATE CHANGE

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    We are on the eve of the potentially deadly Hurricane Florence hitting the Carolinas. In a few days, the government will once again, methodically assess its cost, in lives and property damage. The U.S. with its immense depth for undertaking huge scientific/technical projects might help to stave off these kinds of destructive storms, not today or tomorrow, but in time to reverse the rise in ocean tides, the melting of the poles, the burning of forests, the excessive temperatures experienced here and abroad, and yes, the save the planet for our grand-kids. President Trump’s decision to abandon t..

    You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

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    I got an email from a friend wringing his hands over what’s wrong with America. Too liberal, he says, too diverse, suggesting that if it were more Trumpian, America could be great— and white again. I wrote back that it’s more than black and white. He called me an old man casting his worn out and liberal ideology on others. He may have a point. But words never stopped me, so here I go. The Trump forces believe they have the power to change things, now that they’re in office. But to be fair, every administration does. Many of us think we have the power to change things. But, that too is a myth...

    Do We Stand in Outrage or Complicity

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    During a court hearing, Friday, July 27, a government attorney argued that the court-ordered reunification deadlines to reunite children with mothers and fathers did not apply to parents who have been deported. Thankfully, the judge ruled that deported parents are included in the order. Health and Human Services Secretary, Azar, indicated that of more than 11,800 children being held by HHS, fewer than 3,000 were separated from parents. The rest are unaccompanied minors—, or so they tell us. He said about 100 of the separated children are 5 or younger. I call them babies.     I ask ev..

    FATHER’S DAY

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    I couldn’t be in my wife’s skin when she carried our child for nine months. I couldn’t feel the embryo transform into a fetus that stretched her belly and burdened her body, but that day by day revealed more and more the marvel that would grant me fatherhood. When she gave birth, my bystander status ended, I had to learn much, but the one thing I knew instinctively was that for as long as I lived, I’d do whatever it took to keep my child safe. I’m sure this sense of responsibility comes to all parents, in the same way at about the same time. So it’s no surprise we see this commitment acting it..

    July Resonates

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    July resonates for lots of reasons, and, this year because I find it incredulous that President Trump praises Putin, expresses faith in Kim Jong-un’s willingness to denuclearize, while trashing our NATO allies. I’m left of center politically, yet, I believe all Americans should contribute to our democracy. For some, they choose get involved in the political process, others in civic activities, still others teaching their children the values we hold dear in a democratic way of governing. Still others choose military service. The past 4 generations of my family served, including my currently ser..

    Gross Misunderstanding About Immigrants

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    There seems to be a gross misunderstanding about the rights of the families being ripped apart along the border, so I thought I’d provide some definitions of whom it is we are referring to, that is the children we are now incarcerating and separating from their mothers. The word incarcerate seems harsh, but I’d spent too much time with men and women locked behind bars, not to know what a prison looks like. An asylum-seeker is someone who is seeking international protection abroad, but hasn’t yet been recognized as a refugee. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 14), of which the..

    AN EMPTY EXECUTIVE ORDER

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    President Trump signed an executive order today mandating for children to stay with their parents in detention while their asylum claims are processed. This executive order seeks to modify the Flores Agreement, which states that children should not be held in detention for more than 20 days. Denise Bell, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Amnesty International USA, issued this statement: “Over the last few weeks, we have seen an outcry from people around the world denouncing the cruel and unnecessary separation of more than 2,000 babies and children from their parents. In response, the T..

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